


Silence Isn't Always Golden

by cadkitten



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Sex, Angst, Cutting, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, Explicit Language, Fluff, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-01
Updated: 2010-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Die and Kyo start up a relationship that basically consists of sneaking around in clubs, bars, and darkened corners. Eventually one of them starts to develop feelings and things start to get sticky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence Isn't Always Golden

**Author's Note:**

> Beta Readers: kawaiikyo, rapturouspurple, yaeyamagaijin  
> Comments: For the [](http://jrock-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://jrock-bigbang.livejournal.com/)**jrock_bigbang** challenge. Bands used for inspiration: FAKE?, Dir en grey, Scorpions, Seether, Queensrÿche, and the GazettE.

Kyo's POV

It's been so many years that unless I sit down and think really hard, I can't even remember how it all started. What I can remember is that one night, I found myself wandering around at the after party for one of our lives, my vision blurred by the amount of alcohol I'd consumed. Girl after girl hit on me, but none of them could seem to spark my interest. It was then that I saw _him_.

His smile was so contagious and, dare I say, adorable. Everyone around him was smiling widely, some of them laughing at whatever he'd just said. I was too far away to hear it, too far away to do anything but smile right along with him and watch. It was an odd feeling; finding myself happy despite having no reason to be on such a personal level. Maybe it was just in my own head that he was smiling only for me. But when he looked up and our eyes met, it certainly felt that way.

Without even thinking about it, I just went to him, my feet carrying me closer and closer until I was standing in front of him. He turned away from the others then, slinging his arm around my back and grinning like a total fiend. That was something I always noticed about Die. No matter what, his smile always told something about what he was up to. I just smiled right back, crooked teeth and all, not caring that everyone in the place was probably wondering what the hell had Mr. Antisocial all perked up and playing nice.

It must have been hours later, more booze than I could ever imagine being consumed right before my very eyes, a good portion of it sliding down my own throat until I could barely stand by my own power. It was then that Die took charge of everything, steering me out the door and down the street to our shabby little hotel.

We weren't big back then. Just a small band trying to get our footing in the industry, struggling along and getting paid barely enough to cover our day-to-day expenses. I think that may have been why Die started drinking so heavily. The booze was always free, even when everything else wasn't. And maybe... maybe it was why I let myself be carried down the very same road for a good many years.

By the time we got back to the hotel and inside our shared room, he was telling some stupid joke that had me giggling like I was high on something. Usually my nights consisted of finding the shower, praying it worked and if it did, standing under the spray for at least half an hour while I made closer friends with my right hand. But that night, I was just so damn drunk that all of my inhibitions flew right out the window. When Die left to drain the lizard, I somehow figured it a brilliant idea to forgo the shower and simply make friends with my hand right there on the bed.

He stumbled back out a few minutes later, giggling at something he'd done. But when he saw me, he just stopped dead in his tracks, staring at me, his eyes wide and completely focused on my hand as it moved over my aching flesh. I didn't bother to stop, not really seeing the point in it when all I wanted to do was cum. I'd been wound up all night, needing the kind of release that only orgasm could provide.

Part of me failed to see the glimmer in his eyes... the one I know by heart these days. But I know it was there. It had to have been. Before I could even think about building it up to the point of getting off, Die was on his knees, hovering over me on the bed, those beautiful eyes studying my face for what seemed like an eternity. When he kissed me, it felt like heaven was coursing through my very veins, his tongue pushing into my mouth as his hands began to push away each layer of my clothing, undressing me without so much as a word.

His hands on my body felt incredible, pulling sensations from me that no woman ever had. He knew all the right places and all the proper ways. Best of all, he didn't hold back anything. His mouth moved over mine, seeking to find my tongue and then sucking hungrily on it. His hands found all the sensitive places that I knew I had plus some that I had no idea even existed. Being as drunk as I was, I had to wonder... if he was that good when we were both plastered, what would he be like if we were sober?

The first time I came, it was without any further stimulation to my cock than what I'd been giving it when he walked in. If I'd had the presence of mind, I may have been embarrassed that it happened so quickly and without much help at all. But now... I understand it was just a testament to how damn good the man is. Even as I was coming down from the orgasm, he didn't stop, didn't let up on me at all. If anything, he redoubled his efforts, his own clothing finding a home on the floor, just as mine had before them.

His body... I can remember my very first impression of him. No man could ever have the right to be so incredibly, indescribably beautiful. Pale skin for miles and flaming red hair framing his entirety: he was the picture of beauty. Just taking one look at him told me he could have been anything he wanted to be. A model... a porn star... _anything_. But he'd chosen his path, joining La:Sadie's with me... for me... taking a chance on someone he didn't even know. I remember how my heart fluttered at the thought that he existed in my life simply because I had made the first step.

When I dared to touch him, I found his skin to be just as smooth as it looked. His reactions to my touches were nothing short of erotic, the way he arched into me, pushing his body closer and closer, as if he ached for more. The instant my hand slipped around his cock, feeling the evidence of how turned on he was, I knew I was a goner. I wanted him like I'd never wanted anyone else and there was no letting go.

He moved over me, thrusting himself into my hand, his eyes dark with something I could have classified as simple need... but didn't seem to be as simple as it should have been. His mouth met mine, the kiss heated as our tongues tangled, fighting for dominance over something we didn't even know we had coming. He shifted me, fitting himself between my legs, his hand weaving with my own as he fit both of our cocks into the hole we created and set a fast pace. Even just thinking about it, I can still feel his breath hot on my neck, the way he panted and whimpered, his body straining desperately for more. And when he came against me, it was the most amazing feeling I'd ever felt.

My second orgasm was by his hand, only moments after his own. I swear I screamed loud enough to wake the dead just before I passed out; exhaustion, the booze and two incredible orgasms taking their toll on my small body.

When I woke up the next morning, he was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, obviously freshly showered and dressed. He offered me the smallest of smiles before he stood up and walked to the door. "Breakfast is downstairs... we're due to leave in an hour." Not a word about our exploration the night before... and yet, I could sense that he wasn't upset by it. It was as if he found it better not to try and figure out what was going on between us. Not that I could blame him. I might have been more confused than he was.

===

For two weeks, nothing happened. We didn't even talk the same amount as usual. If anything, it was strained between us. Even Shinya kept eyeing both of us like he knew something was up that he couldn't quite put his finger on. But Die and I... we stuck to what we knew how to do best... and that was music and avoiding questions like the plagues they were. We worked on songs, practiced until we were blue in the face and honestly, we all around did everything we could in order to still work together and not have to talk unless it involved something surrounding our careers.

Maybe it should have hurt... but it didn't. I guess we just didn't see the point in it hurting anything. We would just solve it the way two men in their twenties tended to. We ignored it and let it die away, the memories fading with the time and the distance between us and the time in which it all happened. Things seemed to boil down to us not wanting to disrupt the peace we had managed to achieve inside our working environment.

Our next live came up and we did better on stage than either of us ever had. My voice came through clearer and even I could hear the difference that all the practicing had made in Die's guitar skills. Each note was more precise, less rushed and more in tempo. He carried his portion of the rhythm like a true star and I basked in the glow of knowing we were working our way higher with every single minute.

For the first time in our careers, people wanted an encore. We gave it to them, happy to oblige, each of us wearing the smiles that only knowing you're on your way up the ladder of success can bring out. We left the stage, our clothing sticking to us with sweat, makeup running from the searing heat of the overhead lights and unstoppable grins plastered on our faces. For maybe the second time in my life, I felt like I truly existed... like I mattered somewhere in the vastness of the universe.

The party afterward consisted of the band, crew, management, and a wide variety of people who had attended the show. The same as always, the booze ran freely from the taps and bottles, each of us consuming more than our fair share of it. I drank until I felt like my eyeballs were floating. Two arms came around my waist, holding on loosely while someone's chin rested on my shoulder. The stink of Heineken - Die's favorite beer - wafted to me and one glance down at those hands told me it was him who had snuck up behind me and staked his claim.

Some small part of me was shocked that it was happening all over again. But the other part told me it was only what was destined to happen. Things had worked out so well between us that first time; it only made sense to continue it. After all, we both needed our release and there was really no better way than to keep it with the same person... cleaner... safer... and the potential for so much more as things shaped themselves between us. No lover knows someone better than a long-term one.

The same as before, he didn't waste any time in finding our way out of the bar and back to the hotel management had booked for us. We ended up in our shared room once again, but this time there was nothing accidental about the whole ordeal. Rather, everything seemed to have a purpose. He pressed me against the wall, not even waiting to get me to the bed before his hands were all over me. My clothes almost ripped in the haste to get them off, his lips descending on my own and devouring my mouth like he was a drowning man and I was air.

His desperation filled me to the brim, and I kissed him back in much the same manner. I found myself achingly hard, bucking against him as my hands peeled away his clothing. We shared in everything, our breaths mixing, the heated moans and pants we gave rising in pitch and volume the entire time. Our hands slid over one another, exploring as though we'd never get the chance to memorize one another ever again.

When he dropped to his knees and took me in his mouth, I could only watch him, my eyes open wide and my mouth agape. It was possibly the last thing I ever expected to have done to me by another man. When you listen, you hear things... rumors about how things are inside the world that you aren't a part of... and I'd heard that men didn't like to suck dick, not even gay men.

The way he did it, his tongue lapping over the entire length, wetting it before he basically devoured it, was something a woman never would have done to me. I didn't even think on it, just plunged my hand into his hair and held on for dear life as he bobbed his head. When his gaze flicked up to meet mine, there was a fire in his eyes that couldn't be denied. He was enjoying every second of it, just as I was.

His tongue swirled around my cock, pulling a moan from me that I couldn't even recognize as my own. My hips pushed forward and he took it all. The way he was looking at me telling me he'd take anything I would give him, no matter what it was. It didn't take us long to settle into a rhythm. My hips pushed forward as my hand pushed his head further down on my cock. When I pulled back, he did as well, my fingers easing the pressure on the back of that lovely head of his. I didn't set out to choke him or hurt him and somehow even through all the lust I felt for him, I managed not to at all. When I came, it was blinding for me. White filled my vision as I strained toward him, my cock pulsing deep inside his mouth, filling his throat with my offering.

It surprised me when he didn't do anything except swallow it and then climb to his feet, helping me to the bed. The tender look in his eyes when he laid me down and moved over me is still burned into my mind. His lips traveling from my mouth to my navel and back again, a certain glow coming from him, letting me know how he felt about us being together like this without a word. His fingers pressing at me, probing my entrance didn't surprise me in the slightest. I wasn't blind and having already known him for a few years, I had heard him talk of how much he liked to fuck. And, honestly, what was sex without any actual penetration for at least one party?

I didn't even think about it, just spread my legs further for him and did my best to keep myself relaxed as his slick digits pushed into me, stretching me. I had expected pain... in great quantities. But it didn't come. Instead, it felt vaguely uncomfortable, in much the same way that a tickle up inside your nose would be. It won't go away, but you won't go and rip your nose off just to find the place and scratch it. It didn't arouse me, but I let him do it anyway, his fingers moving around, spreading lubricant inside me. I didn't know where it came from, but it didn't much matter.

He spent what seemed like forever with his fingers stuck in my ass, almost as if he was giving me extra time to object. Eventually, he moved, his fingers retreating and the sound of foil tearing greeting my ears. A moment later, his hot length was pressed against me, twitching ever so slightly as he flexed his muscles. I pushed myself up, inviting him to do as he wished, to push himself deep inside me and find his own pleasure within my body.

When he penetrated me, I thought for a moment that I was going to rip in half. But then it all faded away as my arms wrapped around him, holding him close while I focused on calming down and relaxing. Once I had accomplished that much, things got better. The way he rocked into me didn't hurt anymore. The vague discomfort of it didn't even register in comparison to his closeness and the way he was moving. It was so obvious that he was holding back, just to make sure I was going to be okay. He trembled in my arms the way a scared kitten would, but it was all sexual tension rather than fear. His hot breath teased at my neck and his red hair fell around us, curtaining us off from the rest of the world.

Soon enough, I found myself lifting up, meeting each of his thrusts with my own, pushing myself down on him as he pushed inside me. I wanted to help him, to pull him toward that edge that he had so selflessly given to me. It should have surprised me, and yet it didn't, when his hand came down between us, finding my slightly hardened cock and beginning to stroke me. In no time, he had me straining toward him. My hands restlessly pulled at him, fingers scraping over his flesh, nails leaving red trails behind in my desperation to get more from what we were doing.

His thrusts grew more frantic, his hips snapping harshly against me as he buried himself as deep as he possibly could within my body. When he came, he cried out my name, letting it echo off the cheap hotel room walls in witness to what we had done. Even through the barrier he'd put between us, I could feel the heat of his release; the way he throbbed uncontrollably until he was empty. Through the entire thing, he kept his hand moving over me, trying to bring me off with him.

My hips arched hard, pushing up as I strained toward my orgasm. I could feel the heat of my flushed skin and the sting of sweat dripping down from my hair into my eyes. Everything about me ached fiercely. My muscles were sore but my body knew what it wanted and aimed to obtain it from his hand. His lips sealed over my own and that was all it took. That was the final push before I was flying over the edge, my cum spurting out over his knuckles, my body spasming around him.

An hour later after taking our showers, we fell into the same bed, curled up next to one another and fell asleep. And when I woke in the morning... he was already gone from the room.

===

We eventually went back to our normal routines when we weren't on tour. For almost a month, I did nothing but sit at home and work on lyrics that could be used for the next album. The lyrics flowed out of me, emotions spilling onto the paper to be displayed to the world, just like they always had. I didn’t tend to hold back or keep things inside. It just didn't make any sense to do so when the more I gave to each word, the more it could be felt on stage, where it actually mattered.

By the time we moved into the actual recording phase of our routine, I had put together enough for at least half of a poetry book right along with enough lyrics for the songs we needed. Something inside me was slowly changing and I knew it was, but honestly, that wasn't what mattered at that point. And so, I ignored it, pushed it aside like the useless sense that it was.

We spent hours a day in the studio, recording and re-recording until we'd gotten the production of the next single out of the way. And still we pushed ourselves, building toward the album content until we couldn't even remember what time of year it had been when we started it all.

And then the tour... blessedly we started the tour. That was where I thrived. It was home while everything else was time spent waiting for the stage to come back to me. When it wasn't tour time, I always felt antsy... kind of like I was falling apart at the seams. And if I had been honest with myself, I would have known that it was a combination of things that made me feel that way. I guess hindsight is always twenty-twenty though... and foresight is blinder than a fucking bat.

I think it was the third day of the tour when I finally found enough energy to attend one of the after parties. I didn't really feel like doing it, but something drew me there, beckoning to me like a lone light to a ship out at sea. I ordered myself a vodka twist, feeling like something other than beer for once. It came in a huge glass and I knew it would be all I needed to find that place just beyond buzzed, right before drunk. It was the place I seemed most at peace with myself, with everything I was and everything I could be.

Almost an hour passed and one drink turned into two and just when I headed to get the third, I found myself being led down a short hallway off the side of the bar. Die's red hair glowed softly in the muted yellow lights from above us. I immediately felt the entirety of my slight anxiety fade away into something much more pleasant that burned deep in my loins. I followed him without a single regret, only hoping that I knew where this was going to be heading.

We found the _accessible_ bathroom that was stationed furthest down the hallway without wasting much time. Part of me wondered why we couldn't just find our way back to the hotel. After all, it was only a block or two away at the very most. But when Die's lips found mine, pressing so harshly against my own that our teeth clicked together, my brain simply stopped caring about stupid little details like that.

I found myself arching against him, my hands clawing at his clothing and the most girlish mewling sounds leaving my throat. His fingers slid into my pants, coaxing me into full arousal in less than a minute while his teeth pulled at the flesh of my neck. It would leave a mark; that much was for certain. But I didn't care. He could mark me, brand me as his own and I wouldn't have cared at all right then. My entire body was on fire for him; almost as though I had been waiting for this the entire time we'd been off tour.

When he turned me to face the wall, pulling my pants down and my hips back, urging me to hold the textured white of the flat surface before me, I didn't protest in the slightest. Tonight, he was just as anxious as I was, his need just as pent up as my own. I just couldn't bring myself to deny him the actions I would have craved if I were in his place. I didn't even try.

The cool fingers slipping inside me were a bit of a surprise. I had figured he might have been so desperate he would skip all the formalities and head straight for what would satisfy him the most. It was a slow lesson to learn, but if there's one thing that Die always is... it's a considerate lover. Even boozed up beyond belief or so aroused he can't even see straight, he provides what he knows will make it easier on the other person.

Time slipped past us and eventually I found myself thrusting back onto his fingers, wanton cries leaving my throat and echoing off the walls of our little bathroom shelter. When he pulled his fingers away, it was all I could do to stay still and not whimper and beg like a bitch. My insides trembled in anticipation, waiting on what I knew he could give me. The sound of foil tearing spread a smile on my face and then he was there, pressing into me, his hands on my hips, holding me steady.

We started a pace together, my hips moving just the slightest amount to push him deeper inside while he thrust in and out of me. We'd been going at it for at least a full five minutes when he hit something inside me with his cock, causing me to see stars. It was almost pain, but at the same time, incredibly not painful. My fingernails dug into the wall, my entire body straining as I tried to keep the same position. He seemed to sense he'd done something indescribably right and tried to do it again. When he managed, I couldn't do anything except hang on for the ride. The cries that he yanked free from me surely made the entire club aware of the fact that someone, somewhere was fucking.

Normally, I would have been mortified that anyone could hear me while I was with a lover. But for once in my life, I couldn't have cared less. In a way, I wanted the entire world to hear me and know what he was causing to happen inside my body. My legs shook so hard it was almost impossible for me to keep standing up. He simply gripped my hips harder, moving closer so that if I did slip, I'd only impale myself further on his cock.

I could feel him behind me; the way he pushed into me was so utterly and entirely frantic. Finally, one hand slid from my hip, coming around to take hold of my cock. He stroked me for all he was worth, his lips pressed against my shoulder, teeth worrying the flesh beneath them, his lips soothing just behind. It was then that he spoke. Only a few words, so short, but they were filled with so much emotion that it was impossible to miss his meaning. "I missed you." And it wasn't but a moment later that he pushed inside one final time, his cock pulsing as he came.

I trembled, whimpering as his hand stopped, my body trying hard to get more. I didn't need much, just a tiny bit more before I could paint the wall in front of me. But before I could even ask for anything, his hand was moving again, almost frantically, over my cock. My body strained, my hips pushing toward his hand as my balls pulled up close to my body, reddening with the preparation to let go. The cries I was letting out increased in volume until the very last second. My fingers gripped the wall so hard the skin tore as I lost it, spurting my cum out across the tile floor and the wall in front of me.

Ever so gradually, I came down from my orgasm-induced high, a stupid grin plastered on my face while I caught my breath. Wetting my dry lips with my tongue, I moved ever so slightly, indicating I could hold myself up now. Die moved away from me, the clink of his buckles letting me know he was dressing himself once more. I wiped up and then followed suit, finally kneeling down and cleaning up the mess I'd made. I had always found it inappropriate to leave such things where others would be disturbed by them and had always vowed not to be that rude if at all possible.

Once we'd both washed our hands and dried them, I turned to him, my eyes shining as I reached out and pulled him down for a proper kiss. When I pulled away, he gave me one of his trademark grins, running one hand through my hair. "I missed you, too." The words slipped past my lips before I could stop them, before I could even think about them.

His grin never faltered. He just nodded slightly and then pulled the door open and led me right back out into the club, letting the smoke and darkness eat us up. When I went to bed that night... I went to bed alone.

===

The rest of the tour seemed to pass by in exactly the same fashion. We would avoid mentioning a thing about our little trysts for the entire day. Once the night rolled around and we found ourselves with alcohol in our systems, we'd end up hiding away in some darkened corner or a bathroom stall, sating our needs with one another.

Things just kept going like that and neither of us could have been happier about it. But then, neither of us dwelled upon it during the daytime hours... neither of us thought of what it actually meant for each of us. We never dwelled on the fact that it meant we were both at least bisexual, if not gay. We never thought on the fact that our friendship and career partnership had turned into something like friends with benefits. And more than all of that, we never thought on what would happen once the tour was over.

Maybe that was where my mistake laid. We didn't take off the rose-colored glasses and honestly look at the situation. But then, I suppose everyone gets their one idiotic mistake in life and we both just had ours together.

Looking back at it... I have to wonder how I ever got that far without saying a word. It seems so very obvious to me now, just what was going on the entire time. I've said it before and I'll say it again... hindsight is twenty-twenty.

===

Downtime between tours came once again. And this time my depression descended on me like an iron box that had been waiting just behind the curtain to suffocate me. Everything I wrote pulled from the darkest sources inside me and everything I sang came out as if it were my own heart I was yanking out and throwing on the floor for the world to see.

If any of the others noticed it, they didn't comment on it. But then, they never really had in the past, so starting then would have been a little odd. Each day of recording brought me closer to an edge I didn't even know existed within me. I found it hard not to choke on the emotion and we did so many re-recordings of things that eventually everything was altered from its previous state into something even darker than before.

I found myself sitting in the dark, watching on the nights that Die would do his recording. He never seemed to know I was there and somehow, it was like I didn't want him to know. My smoke mingled with everyone else's, going unnoticed because I was so silent. Night after night, I found myself staying and waiting... hoping perhaps that he'd come and find me like he always did on tour.

The months slipped by and I watched them go with a rapidly deteriorating mind. Insomnia plagued me, leaving me awake for days on end; to the point that my own thoughts started to consume me. My fingers itched for destruction and my body ached for Die. I started following him home at night and to work in the morning. It was creepy and obsessive... and yet, he seemed not to notice at all. Even when I would walk so closely behind him that I could feel the heat of his body in the dead of the winter, he didn't notice. Not even when I would slip onto the train behind him and press myself closer than was actually necessary to just to feel him close to me.

In a way, it disheartened me. It pulled at all of my emotions in the wrong ways, pushing me toward what was rapidly deteriorating into a mental episode. I bought him things and then sent them through the fanclub address rather than hand them directly to him. Part of me feared rejection of the gifts if I gave them to him straight out. But when he'd open the packaging and find something he wanted placed lovingly inside, the way his face would light up gave me hope. It pushed me just a little further back from the brink to know he'd accepted something I'd given him... even if he didn't know it was me.

By the time the next tour came around, I looked rather like death warmed over without my makeup on. It had been almost a week since I'd slept and months since I'd given a shit about my own appearance or anything that didn't pertain to Die. I was too close to the situation to realize that I was part of something that pertained to my sometimes lover.

I stepped out onto stage that first night and felt the most incredible surge of power rush through my body. Everything I was, everything I had been, and everything I could ever be pulled itself inside of me and wound tightly into one aching knot. My head swam with the volume of what I felt and my stomach felt like it was rotting out of my already dying corpse. I would have given anything in that minute to just keep feeling that way for the rest of my life.

That night, I gave my all. I had always tried to before, but I never understood what one hundred percent actually meant. I found it there and I held onto it throughout the entire show, despite the fact that I felt like I was on the verge of collapse. When it was all said and done, I had to drag my sorry ass off the stage and into the wings. By then I was so gone, I found a good, sturdy wall and sank down against it.

It took them a good hour to come looking for me and when they did, it was just one of the staff members, pulling me upright and moving me to the changing room to basically do everything for me while I sat there in the most amazingly comatose state I've ever been in. By the time they got me shuttled back to the hotel, I was completely asleep and I don't even remember getting to my room. I woke up the next morning to an empty room and feeling worse than I already had been feeling.

===

Almost a week of the tour passed before anything happened between me and Die. And when it did, it wasn't him initiating it. I just kept feeling the frustration inside me grow to bigger and bigger proportions until I felt like it was going to burst out of me in some grotesque display of all the evil things that lay inside me.

When I made my move, it wasn't because I wanted to... it was because if I didn't, I _knew_ I was going to die. It felt like it was so close, a ghostly breath on my neck and a shiver down my spine that told me I wasn't much more for this world if I didn't shift my path. The only things I ever listened to in my life were those feelings... the ones I never told anyone about least they think me insane. Not that I wasn't... but all the same, I listened.

I slipped into the after party like a shadow, moving only through the darkness, searching for my prey. I didn't want anything to interrupt me and no one to recognize me. I had to do what I had to do and I'd have been damned if I wasn't going to accomplish it in the fastest way possible.

I found Die sitting on a couch in one of the corners, some skanky bitch sitting glued to his side. He looked positively sauced, his eyes glassy and his gaze distant. A part of me almost gave up right then, figuring him to be with this stupid girl and that was why he hadn't come to seek me out this time. But a whole other part of me wanted to stake my claim, to show him what I thought was supposed to be going on.

Waiting in the shadows, I listened to them. Die feigned interest and she kept blathering until he looked ready to fall asleep. Eventually, he got up claiming to be heading to the bathroom as he began to wobble his way through the crowd. I gave the girl one final look before turning away and heading after him. My chance had been handed to me and like hell was I going to waste it.

I let him do his business, waiting patiently by the door, having locked it right behind him without him even noticing. For a fraction of a second, I realized anyone could do this to him... anyone could lock him away and have him as their own. The thought sent fire through my veins and I acted on impulse, walking to him and shoving him against the wall, crushing my body against his. His face was so full of surprise when he saw it was me.

I didn't waste time, didn't dillydally around with trying to explain myself. Instead, I just pressed my lips to his and started what I intended to finish. I don't think I'd ever been more desperate than I was in that moment, pushing at his clothing like I wanted to shred it for being between us, my own receiving the same treatment until we were both disrobed enough for things to work the way they were supposed to.

I knew what I wanted... knew what I had wanted all those times before and never dared to ask for. And this time, I took it, just the way he took it from me when he wanted. We ended up on the floor, him facing the wall, thighs spread and his hands supporting him and keeping his head from pressing against the once-white paint. I did everything he did to me, finding the lubricant I knew he kept in his pocket and using it to coat my fingers for their entrance into his body.

He didn't protest, even when I pushed two fingers into him all at once. Not a sound except our combined heavy breathing and the slick sound of my fingers working their way in and out of his body. I wish I could have seen his face then, to see what kind of look he wore on those beautiful features. But I was too careless to think of that, to know that I would one day look back upon it and wish for something like that.

When I shoved into his body, my cock achingly hard and my brain almost completely gone, he still never made a sound, only pushed back against me as if to help. My thrusts came fast and harsh, my body unable to wait on what it knew for certain it needed and wanted. It had been too long... far too long.

My moans filled up the small room, bouncing from the walls as I fucked him. The wet sound of our flesh slapping together became an undertone to my cries, to my incoherent words of pleasure. My fingers tightened on his hips until I'm certain he had to have been hurting from it. It wasn't until I was almost at my peak that I realized that I'd failed to give him a damn thing out of it. I snaked my hand around, reaching for his cock and it was a pleasant surprise when I found him just as hard as I was.

I did my best, trying to take him with me over the edge, jerking him off the same way I would myself when I was alone while I pounded into his ass. It didn't take much for him to lose it, a soft cry leaving his lips as he tightened and then spasmed around me, his cum coating my knuckles. Just the feeling of both things combined finished me off, plunging me into a screaming orgasm. I fucked him hard in those last few seconds, harder than I had been the entire time, until it hurt from the force of it.

And when I was done, it was all I could do to pull out and sit back on the floor while I panted for much-needed breath.

Almost twenty minutes later, we both left the bathroom, not a single word spoken between us and almost no evidence of what we'd done left except the slight limp in his step. I maybe should have felt bad about it, but honestly I couldn't find the point in it. He'd left me alone for so long and that little bit was something I thought he deserved for leaving me hanging the way he had.

It's amazing the things I used to justify myself with....

===

The process seemed to repeat itself, the lines seeming to blur along the way. Everything about what happened between us during the tour seemed fine, as if that were the way things were meant to be. But the instant we all went back home and started on the next album... he seemed to abandon me once again.

This time felt harder than the one before. There were times when I felt like I was looking through someone else's eyes rather than my own. I could feel my mind drifting further away from what was acceptable, but I was powerless to stop it. The further away Die got from me, the further away from sanity I went.

Honestly, I remember sitting there, staring at myself in the mirror and feeling like I was looking into the eyes of a complete stranger. I didn't recognize the anger I found welling in the depths of those eyes. And when I looked inside, I didn't feel like the pain I was feeling was my own any longer. It hurt too much to be all my own. It felt like someone was carving me up from the inside, out, in the most painful manner possible.

Recording that time was one of the most agonizing things I ever did. So many times I ended up restarting, my voice cracking in all the wrong places, tracks unusable because of the sheer intensity of what I was putting forth whenever I grasped that microphone between my fingers. One wouldn't think it, but all the things you can put into a song on stage, you have to keep down to a small portion to record right. So much of what is done on stage is mere presence... something no recording can ever provide. And that was the hardest thing for me... to keep my pain from showing through.

Time floated past us, feeling almost like it wasn't going anywhere at all. I did my best to stay out of everyone's way, to keep to myself more than I ever had before. Anytime someone touched me, I would freak out, lashing out and screaming at them to get the fuck away from me. My reason was simple... they were not the person I wanted touching me.

My worst shock came when I was walking out from the studio one evening. Dusk was almost over, night trying to take complete control. But there was still enough light to show me two figures pressed against the side of Die's old car. Why I tortured myself... why I watched... I can only guess at. Some obscure form of self-torture, showing me just how much of a loser I really was as I stood there just outside the doors, watching as Die devoured some girl's mouth the way he had mine once upon a time. The way she pressed herself back against him, hungry for more of the very same things I had been hungry for when he kissed me, buried itself into my head.

I was already broken... I had been for a long time by that point. But that didn't give me any leeway in not feeling the impact of such a sight. Everything welled up inside me, burning for release. Anger... I felt enough anger for an entire army of men. The way my heart raced before I ever turned away and disappeared into the night should have told me something was going to go horribly wrong that night. I knew... I knew like I understood there was a black spot upon my soul that something drastic had changed.

I couldn't pretend anymore. I couldn't delude myself into thinking that he just wanted to keep the contact down to only during tours. Now... now he didn't want me at all and that was perfectly clear. He'd moved on while I stayed stuck in something I couldn't even define in the first damn place. The entire walk home, my fingers twitched, wanting for that same destruction as before. My heart felt as though someone was burning it and my lungs were set ablaze in agony.

Hours later, I found myself on the bathroom floor, blood splattered across the tiles. I hadn't set out to do what I had... to find release in something other than Die's arms. But I had found it in the midst of my anger at myself, in the middle of the pain in my heart. The answer had been in my hands all along and I knew it only when I held that blade between my fingers and gave in to the urges from deep inside my core.

The anger drained away right along with the old pain, a new, duller one replacing it. And even when I cleaned up after myself, I felt something that could have been pride. Maybe it wasn't right to feel such a thing over something so outwardly wrong. I just didn't have the sanity left to grip the fact that I shouldn't have been doing what I was. And it would be a long, long time before I found that sane part of myself again and grasped onto it like a drowning man would a life raft.

===

I had figured the girl Die had been with for a simple fling, someone to pass the time and basically nothing more than that. Maybe I should have known, should have seen it in his eyes when I dared to look a few days later. They say love is blind... and let me tell you, I was incredibly blind when it came to Die. Things could have been so simple if only I would have accepted what some small piece of me knew was going on. But they weren't... and I didn't.

Each time I saw him with her it was like another tiny piece of me peeled away and fell to the floor. I felt discarded and hopeless... like a kitten left to die at the side of a busy intersection. Every morbid thought I'd ever had seemed to turn itself right back on me.

It truly started a few weeks after the first time I'd seen them together. I began to try anything and everything to get beyond what I had seen. I deluded myself into thinking he was replacing me, that me missed me so damn much that he had to keep the girl around while we were off tour and that he'd come right back to me once we were on the road again.

The haze of my own thoughts carried me from day to day, providing me a reason to get out of bed in the morning and a temporary feeling of belonging. But each time I saw them together, it chipped away just a little more at the secure bubble I tried to build around my mind.

The way he treated her, the things he did for her... it was different from anything he'd ever done with me. He bought her things. Gave her jewelry and coffee and other things I turned away too soon to see what was inside the shiny packaging. He never bought me anything. Even when we had gone out to lunch or something together, we had always split the check or I picked up the tab. He cuddled her close and just held her for the sake of holding her.

The only thing I had left was the knowledge that I'd never heard them fucking in the bathroom. He'd only been that desperate with me and me alone. I clung to that piece of information with all my might, using it to lull me to sleep at night and begging it to help me through the days.

The months drifted by and things turned cold again. It was the time of year when Die used to pick me up for work. But now... now he didn't even offer to take me home at night. If anything, he ignored me and treated me like the plague.

My nightly escapades began to include more and more of my own bloodshed and it took everything I had to keep it all hidden away from the others. In a way, I was ashamed... and in another, proud. I had found a way to deal without the use of clinical drugs and without the need for a therapist. But yet, I knew it wasn't quite right... wasn't what I should have been doing. All the same, that never stopped me; didn't even slow me down.

One night what had been just a bit of cold turned into something damn near freezing. Snowflakes fell from the sky and my thin jacket provided almost no protection at all. When Die left the building, I mustered up all the courage I possibly could and rushed out after him. My gloved hand reached for him, barely brushing the sleeve of his warm grey jacket. When he turned, I gave him the most tentative of looks, my eyes pleading. "Hey... is there... any chance I can bum a ride off you?" There it was, the only thing I could think of to ask that actually made sense.

He stared at me for the longest time, his eyes almost sad and then he shook his head slightly. "Sorry, Kyo. But I promised my girl I'd pick her up. She's waiting for me outside of the department store she works at."

And the moment in which he turned away and began to walk off was the moment in which my heart simply ceased to beat. The ember there, the flame that had grown so very large, burned out and died in just a second's time. It wasn't that I'd lost my love for him. Instead it was that I had lost faith in my ability to be good enough for him.

I stood and watched as he drove off, waving to me as he left the lot. I stood there until the others began to leave, each of them bidding me a good night and disappearing down the streets toward their homes. By the time I finally left, it was far into the night. The sky was pitch black above me, not a star in sight and even the snow had turned to sleet.

Upon arriving home, I found that my hands had gone numb and I may as well have not had a nose any longer for all I could feel of it. Even the warmth of a bath did no good and it was then that I realized... it wasn't just my body that was numb... it was my soul.

I had asked him for one thing. One simple favor and I hadn't even been good enough in his eyes to be deserving of that much. Almost unknowingly, I peeled away at myself, the water stinging the wounds as I brought them to the surface. I wasn't creating them... I was letting them out. My entire corpse was already rotting and festering just under the skin, waiting to be turned out into the dark of the night, just where it belonged.

Everything plodded onward, the pace of life unbelievably slower once I had nothing left to hope for, nothing left to live for. Somewhere, a part of me cried out in vain, trying with all its might to get my attention for long enough for me to hear it. If I had listened hard enough on those lonely nights, I could have heard it screaming for me to stop, pleading with me to truly live. But I was as deaf as I was blind... and there was only one person who could ever fix that.

===

The next tour began and I held no enthusiasm for it at all. I had put everything I had into the album itself and pulling the last of my reserves, I had managed to drag my ass out of bed, throw some shit in a bag and leave the shithole of my apartment behind. Nothing excited me anymore except the prospect of the end of a day, the time in which I could find my own version of release.

It wasn't healthy... hell, it wasn't even sane. But then, that was a part of my image anyway. I wasn't supposed to be normal and I wasn't supposed to be the good guy. I was the loner... the self-harm loser. And I myself had developed the image. If I had only known way back when that it would come down to being the truth one day... maybe I would have been a little less morbid. But then, that was the point. It always had been. We were the beacon of hope in the otherwise shitty lives of thousands. We could feed them the pain they felt and let them take it out in another way... other than the way I had found just for myself.

The irony of it all should have broken me down into hysterical laughter. But instead, it was all I could dwell upon as we got off the bus and headed inside the venue for the night. I was the symbol of their pain, now more than ever. In a way, it was oddly more comforting like this. I had an excuse and a reason for everything I was doing. For every scar I had already inflicted on my once spotless body, there lay one of our following who would have to do so one less time.

And just like that, I found my way again. As if this path had been built just for me, it sat there, waiting to be walked upon and justified with all the words I could come up with. Once I was on stage, I gave it everything I had. Maybe more than I had ever before. And when the encore came, I let my shirt flutter away, displaying the disgusting array of scars upon my chest. I raked my nails over the flesh there, finding the destruction on stage to be a million times better than the times I did it alone at home.

The eyes of thousands watched me, all of them full of curiosity and disbelief. They wanted to watch the freak on stage... wanted more of his blood... and I gave it to them in every way I could think of to do it. By the end, I stumbled off, exhausted and feeling a hell of a lot better than I had in months. Something told me that this was how it had meant to be from the very start. I had reached the height of my career and the very depths of my pain.

That night I fell asleep in a bus with five other people. And yet, I slept alone that night... more alone than I had been in my very own apartment.

===

The days dragged by in all the most sluggish ways possible. Every single time I saw Die or heard him, he was on his phone with his girlfriend. I could always tell by the way he would walk off to the side to take the call and the silly grin he got on his face while he was talking with her. It hurt me every single time even though I knew it shouldn't have.

Really, the only good thing was that I could take out all of my frustrations on stage. Right up there with everyone else, I would show the world how much pain my very own life was causing me. I ripped myself to pieces in front of the masses, each of them urging me on in ways that I couldn't have even dreamed they would. Some of them spilled their blood right along with me, screamed right beside me... and when they did, I found that it only drove me to make sure I was heard the loudest of them all. As time went on, I found myself giving everything I had in all possible areas.

Some nights, I damn near sweated blood because I gave them so much. My voice would break and fall apart by the last song, having given everything it could. And my body... my weak body would collapse just off stage, barely out of view of the front rows of fans. And every single night, each of the guys would walk right past me, leaving me be in my own pathetic mixture of sweat, blood, and self-pity. In a way, it was only how I wanted it to be and maybe they knew that from the very start.

I began to spend more and more time sleeping, resting away the agony I was putting myself through on stage. Nothing else seemed to matter except the show. We all plodded on, one foot in front of the other until there was nowhere left the walk and no more notes left to play. The others went to party after the shows while I slunk back off to the bus, finding my bunk and falling into it to simply waste away the portion of my life that wasn't standing in front of thousands of people who actually thought I was worth something.

By the time the tour ended, I didn't have a spot on my body that wasn't sore and aching. Most of me was bruised from the abuse I insisted on putting myself through and the rest was scarred or still littered with fresh wounds from my nails and anything else I could find that was sharp enough to cause me damage. The journey home was something that left me feeling emptier than anything else before it ever had. What little time I managed to glean being anywhere near Die at all was coming to a fast end and I knew he was going to avoid me... I knew it like I knew I was on a fast train to hell with all of my current actions.

The time we had off for 'vacation' I spent mostly holed up inside my bedroom under a nest of covers. If I had had an ounce of humor left in my bones, I would have found my process of living over that month to be rather like a bear in hibernation. Instead, I dwelled on all the bad things that seemed to surround me in everything I did. The two times I went to the store, I felt like the entire world was judging me. What had once been an easy outing turned into something tremendous and full of things that made me want to go right back home and crawl deep into my bed just to never come out again.

By the time we started up band activities again, I had nothing to show for my time off. Not a single lyric or anything. For once, I was the one behind everyone else, the one lagging the rest behind while they grumbled at me over it. And for once, I didn't care; at least not outwardly. Somewhere inside, I wanted to curl up and die for drawing attention like that to myself. But then, all anyone cared about was the lyrics and making sure the songs recorded properly. No questions on how I was doing or why I looked like death had tried to claim me more than once. Maybe they didn't care... or maybe they simply didn't want to know.

Each day when I left, I would see Die standing around in the parking lot with his girl. I used to make the effort to wave to him, to at least tell him to have a nice evening and to be safe. But at that point, I just walked by, my hands stuffed in my pockets and my head down, hair falling into my face, obscuring my vision. Everything in life became something I could solve by ignoring it. I ignored Die, ignored my health, and ignored management when they told me to shape up and start giving a damn again. I simply told them I couldn't bring myself to give a rat's ass about what they wanted me to when I had nothing else to live for.

Needless to say, they didn't appreciate my honesty.

The months moved on, things staying about the same as we recorded and did all our public relations work. I played the same man I had always been, if not a little more true to my part in the sense that I could now truly feel the pain I had been reaching for. I toned up for the upcoming tour, not wanting to look like a lost child on stage, knowing it would only give the world more ammunition against me if I didn't fix how pale and fragile I had become. I shaped myself out nicely, not having anything else to focus on other than my body... and it proved a nice distraction from the world around me.

The tour arrived and I had never been more in shape than I was at that moment. In the physical sense, I felt like I could do anything, despite the fact that mentally, I was worse off than a hospital patient lying comatose somewhere in the west wing.

The first week was almost boring. I got up each night and sang my heart out. For around two hours, I was happy. I felt like something of myself in that sense. But the moment the lights came back up, I knew it was all over. I felt nothing but empty. No amount of cheers could hold me over for more than a few minutes.

It took me eight days to see past the end of my own nose and actually see Die again for the first time in months. When I did see what I should have long before, I found a shell of the man I used to know. His eyes looked as close to dead as my own did in the mirror each morning. His skin was sallow, giving off a sickly color that told of just how close his liver was to shutting down. Worse than all of that, his smile, his beautiful thousand watt smile wasn't anywhere to be found. For two days I waited to see that smile again and it never happened.

On occasion, our eyes would meet across the bus. I wanted to go and help him and yet, at the very same time, I wanted him to suffer the same way I had been suffering for him. In the end, it was Kaoru who asked him what was wrong and I happened to be close enough to hear him tell that his girl had broken it off with him, accusing him of cheating while on tour despite the fact that he hadn't. If the news had come months before, I would have been happy, maybe even thrown myself a little party. But as it was, the news didn't even bring me a smile. 

It wasn't until about a week before the end of the tour that he bothered to come to me. When he did, it was in the dead of the night and he reeked of booze. He could barely stand up, swaying on his feet at the hotel room door. That night, we had made the second of our measly three hotel stops for the tour, all of us grateful for a bed rather than a bunk in a moving bus. But apparently he had ideas other than sleeping in his own room for tonight.

Me... being me... I let him into my safe haven. I opened my door wide and he stumbled inside, making a beeline for the bed and then collapsing on it. I joined him after a few moments of deliberation, curling up at his side and running one hand over his belly. Too thin... that was my first thought, one that made me ache in ways I hadn't in a long time. It was as if him walking into my room symbolized everything I needed to get myself back on my feet and somewhat back in gear again.

When he finally asked me, almost an hour later, to give him comfort, I did everything he asked of me without a single moment of hesitation. I would have jumped off the top of the building if that had been his desire. Fortunately for me, it wasn't. His kisses were sloppy, the product of enough booze to virtually kill a man. And honestly, it was no surprise when he finally passed out on me, my fingers buried deep inside his body and my cock aching between my thighs. 

I could have done anything I wanted to him and he probably wouldn't have protested it in the morning. But I didn't. Instead, I lay beside him, my gaze traveling his body while I touched myself. My hand moved over my flesh with more vigor than I had given myself in a long while. My own enthusiasm came as a surprise to me. It didn't take me long, only a few minutes and then I was cumming, my release spurting out across his hip. 

I could have cleaned it up, could have taken away the evidence of what I had done while he slept. But some part of me told me to leave it... to show him that I did the only thing I could when he left this consciousness behind for the night. That night... I fell asleep with him beside me... and I could only pray I would wake up in the morning with him right there.

===

That next morning, I did wake up with Die still in the bed beside me. In fact, he slept for a good hour longer than I did and when he woke up, it was me for once who sat on the edge of the bed and spoke of how breakfast was already being served and we would leave in an hour. The way he looked at me stirred something deep inside and pulled at all the right strings to form a tender smile on my face.

Things seemed to go well from then on. Things continued down the path they had been headed toward that night before he fell asleep and eventually we were right back in the very same situation we were before he had found himself a girlfriend. We met almost every single night in one way or another, sating our needs in every way we could in the amount of time we were provided.

The night I remember the most was the last night of the tour. He found me in the back of the smoky club, his eyes glittering faintly with the alcohol he'd already imbibed over the duration of the night. Somehow that was always when I found his eyes the most expressive, as if he were utterly unguarded in those moments. His hand touched my cheek and it sent a shiver down my spine, teasing at my senses in a way all of his touches once had.

When he led me away from there, finding us a couch in the corner of the bar's VIP lounge, I didn't object. I couldn't find it in me to even protest the fact that we were in public and anyone could come into the darkened corner and find us there. Instead, I let him do what he wanted, let him take hold of me and manipulate my body and mind into doing his bidding. His kisses were smooth, practiced. They left me aching for more, pulled mewls of lust from my throat as though I were nothing more than a twenty yen whore.

A band I should have known played in the background, the lyrics undeniably sappy. Someone lit up a clove cigarette somewhere close to us, the scent of it traveling the air and filling my nose with the sweet smell. Things grew between me and Die, something crackling in the air that I hadn't felt with him in a long time. My hips pushed up against his, feeling the evidence of his arousal press back against me and I did something I had never done before. I begged. I begged him with all that I had in me to take me, right then and right there, regardless of what he had originally intended.

It wasn't long before he had me out of the pants I had been wearing, my boxer briefs falling to the floor only a few moments later. When I felt the coolness of the lubricant he'd thought to bring with him press against my hole, I could only push down on his fingers. I wanted him perhaps more than I had the first night he'd come back to me. All it had taken was the small amount of kisses and the tension in the air for my cock to ache.

When he finally plunged into me, my leg curled over his hip and I pulled him closer than I ever had before. I clung to him with all that I had; one hand in his hair and the other resting just between his shoulder blades. As he thrust, he kept his lips pressed against mine, kissing me deeper than I could recall he ever had before. My mind sank away from all the pain it had been feeding on, shoving itself back into the proper slots it should have been resting in.

It seemed like hours before I finally couldn't stand it anymore. For all of the silence I had been trying to maintain, I lost it right at the end, my cry pitching itself above the sound of the music. The leather creaked under us and Die moaned above me, sinking deep into me and letting go. It was only then that I realized... for the first time he had left the barrier from between us. Even in the midst of my own orgasm, I could feel the heat of his as he filled me in a way I had only dreamed of.

And when he pulled away, the look on his face wasn't one of disgust. If I could have named it, I would have called it... love. But when he left me there a few minutes later, turning and walking away, I couldn't help but think that maybe I was simply imagining it all.

===

The tour ended and quite possibly the second biggest downtime of our entire career followed. For what felt like the millionth time, I watched all my hopes and dreams fall to the floor and shatter as if they were simply a glass figurine. I sat alone in my apartment, my only company the shards of everything I had desired and failed to obtain. I had managed to come to terms with the fact that I actually wanted him for more than just the company. I needed Die for all that he was and all that we could be together... all that we were when we tried during the lengthy times we spent in close quarters.

My problem lay in the fact that I couldn't figure out how to actually tell him all of it... and in the fear that I was completely alone in my emotions. Some small piece of me wasn't quite sure I could actually stand it if he rejected me. I wasn't certain what the outcome would be if he did, but there was a feeling of dread that settled deep in the pit of my stomach and simply wouldn't let go of me.

The months crawled past, the scars on my emotions running deeper and the blood running perhaps thicker than it ever had in the past. I found new ways to educate myself in the mastery of my own pain, each one more exciting than the last and each one bringing me down harder than the one before it. By the time I found myself waiting for Kaoru to unlock the studio, my hands buried in the pockets of my sweatpants, I couldn't even remember why I cared if I was there or not in the first damn place.

For the first few weeks of recording, I paid Die absolutely no attention whatsoever. I suppose somewhere along the way my new plan had become to ignore him just like he ignored me. The truth was, that plan was doomed to fail from the very start. I had no way of knowing all of that, though, and it wasn't as if I actually considered what the repercussions of it would be.

By the time I was actually forced into working with him on a portion of one of the songs, things were stiff between us. I snapped at him and he would answer as if he were some sort of android at the very most. We created just like we always had, the two of us meshing there in the same ways we seemed to during sex. It was simply that all of the words felt forced.

Everything came crashing to an abrupt halt two days after we started working on the second song. Something inside me snapped, and I just didn't care what anyone thought anymore. All day long, I bit off people's heads, yelling for no reason at all and then retreating into whatever corner I had come out of just as suddenly. 

Die made the mistake of brushing past me on the way out the bathroom door as I headed in. My first instinct was the one I acted upon, my hand reaching out and snatching the material of his shirt. I hauled him back into the room, slamming him against the wall, one hand grasping his hair and pulling until he was close enough for me to seal my lips over his own. For a few heart-stopping seconds, he didn't respond at all. It was as if the gears in his mind couldn't quite engage themselves without the presence of some amount of alcohol in his system.

When he did, his kiss was almost tentative, as though he were afraid this was some kind of trap. Gradually, almost achingly, he let go of himself and kissed me back the very same way I kissed him. All of the lust was there, the pure need radiating through the both of us, intertwining and creating something more.

I pulled away, my breath rasping out harshly between us until I spoke, saying all that I had ever needed to say with the fewest words possible. "I'm sick of this shit. I need you... I want you. Hell, I fucking love you, and I just don't know if I can keep doing what we have been without knowing you won't break me again." Maybe it was more than I should have said, more than he needed to know. But the honest truth of it was that I couldn't just let it all slip away as if it were nothing. None of it had been anything less than _everything_ to me.

I let go of him and backed away, expecting him to bolt from the room, to leave me in his dust with words of calling it total quits trailing behind him. Much to my surprise, he just stood there, studying me for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he nodded, heaving a soft sigh that sounded vaguely of defeat. "You're right. I shouldn't have ever taken you for granted. I used you and I guess I thought it was okay because I thought you were using me in return." He ran one hand through his short black hair, shrugging his shoulders ever so slightly. "I owe you more than that... more than _this_. I always have."

He pushed away from the wall and headed for the sinks, standing and staring into the mirror in front of him. The minutes ticked by and it took me a good many of them to realize the ball was effectively in my court. I could choose what he owed me, exactly. I just had to say it. "Give me what my heart desires. I want you... all of you. Not just your body, but your emotions and mind as well."

When he turned around, he cupped my cheek, leaning down and kissing my lips in a way that made my heart beat a million miles an hour. I felt as though I could burst right on the spot. Everything I had ever wanted seemed to be granted within that single action. 

He never said it... never promised it. But from that day until this very one, he has been by my side, ever the faithful lover. Now he gives me the kisses, the little presents he sees fit to find, and the adoring embraces. When he turns to someone and gives them the brightest of his smiles... that someone is always me.

If there was ever a lesson to learn in life, I have to say it was this one. Silence isn't always golden.

**The End**


End file.
